Title: Stop, kontrola, Stocznia Gdańska Sierpień 1980
Photographer(s): Erazm Ciołek
Writer(s): Based on Strajkowego Biuletyny Informacyjnego Solidarność, Robotnika oraz Biuletynu Informacyjnego
Designer(s):
Publisher(s): Komitet Wydawniczy, NSZZ Solidarność Regio Mazowsze, Warsaw, Poland
Year: 1981
Print run:
Language(s): Polish
Pages: 112
Size: 15 x 21 cm
Binding: Softcover
Edition:
Print:
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Poland, 1980
ISBN:
Among the photos included in the book, many are shots that quickly became national icons (including a photo showing Lech Wałęsa and Prelate Jankowski at the top of the crowded shipyard gate).
The title is taken directly from one of the photographs printed in graphic form on the cover of the book. It opens with a chronology of the strike at the Gdansk shipyard. Lenin, and ends with a note on the author, consistent with the genre of the original photo albums, from which we learn which cameras and lenses Ciołek used.
The strength of these images, but probably also the photographer's involvement, meant that although many people photographed the strike in the Gdańsk shipyard, it was Erazm Ciołek who went down in history as the photographer of August 1980, symbolically becoming the owner of the photographic image. of the strike. Ciołek returned several times to edit photos of Gdańsk, preparing publications during martial law and after the fall of the Polish People's Republic. The photographer's connection with Solidarnosc and the underlining of his political involvement were completed with a series of photographic portraits of opposition candidates in the first democratic elections in 1989, which were used on election posters (the famous photos showing the candidates in the company of Lech Wałęsa).